Entertainment

Thorpe passes away at 60

Rock Legend Billy Thorpe has died after suffering a massive heart attack, aged sixty. He died at St Vincents Hospital with his family by his side.

"He woke at 1am feeling terrible. Shortly after that he had a massive heart attack, the paramedics were called to the house, they worked very hard in hospital," Thorpe's manager Michael Chugg told the Nine Network.

In the least surprising Oscars for longer than we care to remember, Dame Helen Mirren won the Best Actress Oscar for The Queen, meaning that she finally has enough awards to use them to spell out "Who's the best Dame now?" in her garden so that Judi Dench can see it next time she's on Google Earth; Forest Whitaker won the Best Actor Oscar for The Last King Of Scotland and Martin Scorsese won Best Director and Best Picture for The Departed.

Boot given the boot

A Today Tonight reporter has been suspended after supplying chains that were used to lock an 84-year-old woman to her nursing home room.

Reporter Nicholas Boot's story led Tuesday night's bulletin of Today Tonight and featured an elderly woman chained to a cupboard at the Willoughby Aged Care Retirement Centre by a long chunky chain.

"As we go to air tonight this 84-year-old grandmother remains locked up in her nursing home room chained to a cupboard," Today Tonight host Anna Coren told viewers.

Tabloids won't have Anna Nicole Smith to kick aroundAnna Nicole Smith, the voluptuous former Playboy centerfold who married an octogenarian billionaire and waged a legal battle for his fortune all the way to the Supreme Court, died Thursday after collapsing at a hotel. She was 39.

The blond bombshell _ who recently became tabloid fodder all over again after the sudden, apparently drug-related death of her 20-year-old son _ was stricken while staying at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino and was rushed to a hospital.

Pop star Kylie Minogue's friends have claimed that French actor Oliver Martinez's link with Israeli model Sarai Givati, is the reason behind the couple's split.

The two announced their split on February 3, through a joint statement and now Minogue's friends have revealed that her parents were not happy with her relationship with Martinez for some time.

"Her family and friends have been unhappy about her relationship with Oli for some time," The Mirror quoted, a source close to her, as saying.

The sourced added that the 38-year-old singer's parents and friends thought he was a characteristic Frenchman, 'too smooth for his own good'.

"He is what they call a typical Frenchman - too smooth for his own good, as they say," the source added.

All close to Minogue were of the opinion that he was too haughty and the tales of his womanising only aggravated their mistrust.

"They have always thought he is quite arrogant and the stories about his womanising didn't help his cause," the source said.

From open condoms to six-pack abs, it's been quite a week for young Daniel Radcliffe.

Sunday, HBO aired an episode of the hit comedy "Extras" in which the "Harry Potter" star, 17, played a hyper-sexual version of himself. The randy Radcliffe paraded around with an open condom that he "hoped was big enough" while hitting on women old enough to be his mother.

Then, Tuesday, pictures surfaced online showing the actor shirtless in the West End production of the play "Equus." Radcliffe plays a stable boy in the London show, opening Feb. 27, and besides bearing his chest, his role reportedly requires a sex scene and additional nudity.

Who is being boned now?

Quizmaster, turned Nine executive, Eddie McGuire, was forced to answer his own million-dollar question yesterday - does he still want to be the CEO?

With TV gossips certain he will be named host of the network's new game show 1 vs 100 at its VIP launch in Melbourne tomorrow night, the man in the hot seat denied the claims, saying "there's absolutely no change to my role".

Clues to the contrary point to McGuire's return to an on-air role, while a new position of director of television was shopped around to industry executives last year.

Model Amanda Wyatt says Urban was her lover

AN American model said had an ongoing affair with Keith Urban while he was engaged to Nicole Kidman and has spoken of the country star's drug habit.

Amanda Wyatt, a 23-year-old part-time model who met Urban at a bar, said they never used protection during their relationship which began in 2004 and continued until May this year – the month before Urban and Kidman married.

A federal judge threw out an Iraq war veteran's lawsuit Wednesday that claimed filmmaker Michael Moore used a clip from a television interview without the veteran's permission to falsely portray him as anti-war in ``Fahrenheit 9/11.''

Sgt. Peter Damon, a National Guardsman, was seeking $85 million, claiming ``loss of reputation, emotional distress, embarrassment, and personal humiliation'' due to his appearance in Moore's 2004 documentary criticizing the Bush administration and the war in Iraq.

 

eBay sued promoter over anti scalper clause Online auction website eBay has won an Australian Federal Court challenge against the latest moves by promoters of the Big Day Out to prevent ticket scalping. "The scalpers have won today,” Ken West said. The online auction site sued the promoter after changes were made to the conditions of tickets sold for concerts, arguing that the changes amounted to deception. “The ticket scalper is being protected within the system while the consumer can be forced to pay two, three times the face value,” West said outside the court.

Eddie McGuire was forced to publicly confirm he was still the boss at Channel Nine last night after rumours swept the TV industry that he had quit.

McGuire told staff at the network's Melbourne Christmas party there had been a lot of speculation that he would resign.

"For the record, I'm not," he said.

Earlier, a Nine spokesman branded the rumours as "nonsense".

"We're still celebrating the fact that we won the ratings -- and we're getting on with the business of making television," he said.

Nicole earns $22 million a movieNicole Kidman is the queen of Hollywood when it comes to money.

 

The Oscar winner, who earns as much as $US17 ($A22) million a movie, tops the fifth annual list of highest-paid actresses released Wednesday by the Hollywood Reporter. Kidman, 39, ranked second on last year's list behind four-time top-earner Julia Roberts, who didn't make the list this year. She spent time with her two-year-old twins.

In second place, with $US15 million a movie, was Reese Witherspoon, 30, who won the best-actress Oscar this year for her performance in "Walk the Line."

How Crikey.com.au saw the departure of Seven's high profile Naiomi Robson:

2006 has hardly been a banner year for women in commercial TV.

<!-- D(["mb","Yesterday, Seven\'s Today Tonight host Naomi Robson fell on her microphone and announced she wouldn\'t be back in 2007. Last Friday, the Ten Network flicked newsreader Tracey Spicer in a particularly churlish manner via email to her manager.

Irish ozzie makes goodDamien Leith may not be an Australian citizen, but the nation has adopted the Irishman as its own, crowning him this year's Australian Idol.

In one of the closest competitions in the history of the Network Ten program, the chemist and father of one beat Northern Territory schoolgirl Jessica Mauboy in tonight's finale held at the Sydney Opera House.

Scooping victory in the fourth series, an overwhelmed Leith said winning was going to take "a long time to sink in".

"Definitely the night of my life; it has been absolutely incredible," said the emotional 30-year-old at a press conference following his victory. "I am humbled to have had this to have happened to me."

Leith hails from Newtown in Sydney and is originally from Ireland's County Kildare, south-west of Dublin.

"I have found the last 10 to 15 minutes hard to take in ... very emotional."

Tom and Katie married before Italian weddingThe fairytale Italian wedding of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes has been branded a stunt after the pair admitted they got hitched days before the celebrity bash.

Critics labelled the lavish ceremony a sham intended to promote the Church of Scientology.

Bracciano Mayor Patrizia Riccioni is considering taking back the honorary citizenship she offered the couple before they wed because the small village was so offended by the behaviour of Mr and Mrs Cruise.

"It would have been nice for them to stop and wave," she said.

A Catholic priest in the village, Father Nicola Fiorentini, said the town felt insulted.

"It wasn't a wedding at all. It was just for publicity," he said.